Tag: new years resolution

Hey there. So here we are, at the end of another year, ready to raise our glasses, stuff our faces, and fester neck deep in turkey and Quality Street for a solid week – before vowing to lose weight and hit the gym in 2016, of course. And by 2016, we mean from the first Monday of 2016, because the few days preceding one’s return to work are nothing if not buffer days to delay the new and improved selves we vow to muster.

My transition into from 2015 to 2016 is going to go a little something like this. For the next few days I’ll be sailing through a limbo period of my healthy eating and gym routine, where I’ll more than likely rise feeling great, make my usual brekkie of oats or fruit, hit the gym, grab a coffee, and come home and write (often interspersed with a brief social encounter). Then, almost as the laptop closes, the lid to the biscuit tin magically lifts itself from grip, clinks down on the table, and those chocolate dipped beauties that we get graced with but once per year will fly into my mouth with little hesitation. Before I know it, Christmas Day and Boxing Day will roll around, also known as THE DIETER’S HALL PASS. That’s right. The gym is closed. CLOSED. I’m not allowed in. The sign on the door may as well say “bathe in turkey” because quite frankly, the six letter word they opt for translates as such in just about any tongue I have ever known. Yuhuh. I plan to eat what ever I can cram into my mouth, barely stopping for breath for the entire 48 hours, before I crawl back to the gym on the 27th with my tail between legs, ready for the meat sweats.

Anyway, enough about my – albeit somewhat problematic – eating habits. Once the colossal feast is over, I’ll be packing my suitcase and dragging my poor mother off to Heathrow AGAIN to drop me off for a tasty 9am flight. 9am you hear? Not bad, right? Weeellllll, when you live two hours from the airport and overestimate the timing of everything, a 9am flight is actually code for “hey Mum, I think we should leave at 3am”. Oh, and don’t forget those magic four words – JUST TO BE SAFE. Leaving 6 hours before your flight, at a time of day when traffic is incredibly unlikely, is absurd. But. I’ll be doing it anyway.

I’ll be rocking into Melbourne at the even tastier hour of 1.55am (so my poor Mum isn’t alone in the awkward airport drop off/pick up time warp). That’s right, boyfriend. Come on down.

As a sufferer of intense jet leg (the kind where you wake up at 4am, lay in bed restless and then race out to the kitchen the second you hear movement because the prospect of eating toast with your boyfriend’s Dad is simply SOMETHING TO DO), the prospect of landing in Melbourne on New Years Eve fills me with dread. Fly in for New Year they said. It’ll be fun they said. FALL ASLEEP AT THE PARTY THEY SAID. Let’s face it, it’s going to happen.

So post pyjama party (not everyone else, just me), the reality of 2016 will set in. Both my mum and boyfriend are cracking on with brand spanking new jobs, so they’re both killing the classic ‘new year, new start’ mantra that drives multimillion pound marketing campaign for the entire globe every year. But here I am, heading back to Melbourne, to an incomplete life. After having to leave my main contract job due to visa restrictions, I’m somewhat of a nomad again. Roaming free with little purpose, I’m already beginning to get flashbacks of when I first arrived in Melbourne – though granted it’s much less of a culture shock as many aspects will have remained constant while I soaked up the balmy fifteen degree ‘heatwave’ England had on offer.

So, I decided to make myself a killer New Years Resolution. Well, my main one is to be able to do ten push ups. Proper boy ones. It may sound like nothing to some people but my upper body and core strength is nowhere where near what it needs to be (partially due to an old injury, partially due to me just having the natural strength of a artichoke). But a better one. A fun one. One that’s actually a bit backwards. Yeah sure, I’m taking 2016 as my second chance to keep my fitness up while I’m overseas, but I wanted a fun resolution, too. Over my 8 months in Melbourne I slowly piled almost a stone back on of what I had lost in 2014 – and lost A LOT of muscle, but I’ve been working hard to kick 8lbs of that in the past 6 weeks and I intend to keep it that way. By the way, those of you who nailed the “What? What weight? You look the same to me” charade – your Oscars are in the mail. Top drawer.

ANYWAY GET TO THE RESOLUTION. You’re all thinking it.

Drink. More. Champagne.

Yep, drink more champagne. And prosecco. And bellinis. Basically anything bubbly in a flute. Why, you ask? Why is this weirdo vowing to drink more champagne in the same breath as vowing to keep her fitness up?

I’ll tell you why. Champagne, in the literal sense is utterly divine (and I do whole heartedly intend to actually consume more of the bubbly stuff, in moderation, of course) it’s more of a metaphor for the celebrating I intend to do. I’ve realised I’ve got a hell of a lot to celebrate, and I don’t glug the proverbial champagne as much as I should. Everything’s pretty damn good, so for 2016 I intend to raise my glass to everything I love more often. Sure, sometimes that glass will be full to the brim of Moet & Chandon, sometimes it’ll be filled with Passion Pop; sometimes it’ll be an empty hand fist pumping to mark the end of a great run, and sometimes it’ll be a high five for completing a killer piece of writing. Either way, the champagne – however real – will be consumed.

Here’s to a great 2016. Enjoy the last few days of the “It’s Christmas” excuse, make resolutions you want to keep, and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to change next year. Quite often, it’s the things you’re doing right that deserve some recognition.